


A Ship Sailed

by AnnaofAza



Series: A Ship in the Harbor [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Castiel POV, Established Relationship, Heartbreak, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Post-Episode: s08e17 Goodbye Stranger, Season/Series 08, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 08:48:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4515522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaofAza/pseuds/AnnaofAza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel comes to apologize for the day's events, and stumbles upon Benny's boat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Ship Sailed

Castiel has to apologize. He knows that he must get moving, before Naomi and her reinforcements find him and the tablet, but Castiel must check on Dean. His healing powers have always been perfect, pinpoint to the smallest fracture or the tiniest scratch, but that is not the real reason. He has to tell Dean about the white room, about the first of a thousand attempts to resist Naomi, about how his mind felt lighter, the attachments to Naomi's probing snapped completely. The Enochian sigils he'd carved in Dean's ribs a long time ago are still effective, but Castiel knows other ways of finding him. 

He expects to see the usual: a cheap, cramped motel with the Impala parked in the back, but instead, sees a dock with boats bobbing gently in time to the waves. The Impala is in the mostly-empty parking lot, headlights pointed at a small, white houseboat. It looks almost ghostly-gray in the dark, with a railing stretched around what almost looks like a trailer without wheels in the middle of the deck. On the right side, in bright red paint, has  _The Vampirate_ in cursive scrawl. 

Castiel, with a thought, enters. It's barely two rooms, with the steering wheel and components in the front, with a panel inlaid with a glass-less window to separate it from the living corridor. There are crowded shelves built along the left side stacked with books and shells, with a galley kitchen crammed in the back with a tiny fridge. The smell of Cajun spices still lingers in the room, and neatly-stacked bowls, along with a pot and a wooden spoon, rest on the counter.

In the middle of the room is a pull-out couch, and Dean is laying across it with a heavy, wool blanket draped over him. Beside him, underneath the covers, is the vampire from Purgatory—Benny. 

He startles when he sees Castiel standing over them, and reaches for the machete on a trunk serving as a coffee table before getting a good look at him. His eyes easily adjust to the dark, and Benny slowly sits up, taking care not to disturb the sleeping occupant. Castiel takes in Dean's peacefully-smoothed face, arms limp across his chest and the empty space on the couch, and the familiar sleep-smell, heavy and relaxed. Dean makes a little sound as Benny stands up, eyes never off Castiel's.

"What are you doing here?" Castiel notices that Benny's making full use of his body to stand in front of Dean like a shield. 

"I came to speak with Dean." 

Benny's voice is deceptively calm, though the slight stretch of his right arm hovers briefly over his weapon. "I know what you did."

Castiel can feel the blood on his knuckles, the blade in his clenched fist, the lack of resistance, even when Dean cried out in pain. "It wasn't me," he says, but it's a feeble bleat.

"Dean says you were brainwashed. Not the first time, either."

Not the first time, nor the second or third, though even the first he can remember is not the truly the first. How many times have Naomi been pulling his strings? He remembers fighting in dark warehouse, wings burning into the ground, praying for Dean to wake up and drive to the location in the folded piece of paper. He remembers tortures of pain, disgust, shame, and condescension. _Are you turning away from your Father? Are you going to Fall? Are you no longer one of us, an angel of the Lord? Are you going to be like our former brother, Lucifer?_  

Instead of confirming or denying, Castiel instead looks at Dean. The nights in Purgatory were anything but quiet, and although Dean's body had slowed down enough that he scarcely needed nourishment or sleep, Castiel and Benny insisted that Dean needed more rest than any of them. Castiel had stripped off his trenchcoat and bundled it under Dean's head, and Benny had stoked the fire when the nights were chill.  
    
"When did this happen? In Purgatory?"  
  
"No," Benny says, sounding surprised. "No. I had— _thought_ I had—Andrea, and I figured he had you."

_I figured he had you._

Castiel allows that to absorb like a punch. "How long have you two...?"

Benny looks at him, seeming to read Castiel's thoughts with a single sweep of his eyes. Dean turns over on his side, and Castiel tracks how a small smile plays across Dean's features as his lips shape a two-syllable name. He wonders, for the first time, if the boat's name was Dean's mark.

Benny explains: "He came back after a fight with his brother, met me up in the Catskills, where I was near starving to death. He broke into a hospital, helped save my life. And he stayed the night, then the next, then the next. Things took off from there."  
   
_I need you,_ Dean had pleaded.  
  
Castiel needed him too. He cradled Dean's broken cheekbone in his hand, and healed his face and broken wrist. And when Dean asked _what broke the connection_ , Castiel didn't even answer. The silence was enough. The answer was obvious. In that moment, Castiel had thought they understood each other completely for the first time. But he never noticed how Dean pulled away after Samandriel, how Dean seemed to take every oddness Castiel had emitted these past weeks in stride, how he seemed surprised when Castiel listened to his pleas and dropped the blade. Yet Dean still trusted him, but he no longer believed in him as much as he once did.

He knew that Sam had taken up with someone he'd met while Dean was in Purgatory, a young veterinarian. Sam once mentioned that things were tense, because of Sam's reveal and Amelia's husband's return, but this was something they both wanted and made it work. Dean had stopped flinching at the mention of her, and even joked that Amelia might be able to come home with Sam if she was willing to live in a dead men's bunker and learn how to shoot.

Both of the brothers had moved on, to be happy.

Perhaps it was time that Castiel moved on, too.

He could argue with Benny. He could pull out everything he and Dean had been through together like a large deck of cards. He could mention, if Dean hadn't, that Castiel had pulled him from Perdition and rebelled for the man that changed his perspectives, his life, his world. Dean was the first he'd ever loved, and privately, Castiel admitted that it might never fade completely.

But Castiel knew he'd never compromise Dean's happiness. He knows that more clearly now, after watching Dean rake leaves.

"I have to leave very soon." Castiel finally says. "My siblings are not happy with me right now. I need to find someplace safe to hide."

Benny nods, as if he's experienced this sort of thing before. "Should I tell Dean that you've stopped by?"

Castiel spreads his wings, invisible to the earthly eye. "No," he says, and takes flight.


End file.
